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Thursday, 31 January 2013

We plan to roll out more than 40,000 small cells by the end of 2015. To do this, we’ve already begun testing the technology in the field with our first trial deployments in the areas of Crystal Lake Park, Mo. and Waukesha, Wis.

In Crystal Lake Park, a suburb of St. Louis, we deployed metrocells in an outdoor residential area with poor coverage due to geographical challenges. The small cells have shown to be an effective solution, allowing for a 17 percent increase in mobile traffic on our network where the solution was deployed and boosting the outdoor area to nearly 100 percent usable coverage.

We also trialed the small cells in one of our previously problematic buildings in Waukesha, Wis., and generated equally impressive results. The trial decreased the dropped call rate in the building, allowed for a 15 percent increase in mobile traffic on our network where the solution was deployed and also resulted in nearly 100 percent usable coverage.

Thursday, 24 January 2013

The embedded presentation below was given at yesterday's Telco Evangelist event in London, attended by around 40-50 people. This was a taster session for our full day Metrocell Masterclass, being held next in London on 21 Feb, but with more emphasis on LTE metrocells.

The audience was quite interested - for some, the idea of millions of small cells (including LTE metrocells) will be needed was new to them, and the consequences became more apparent. Good round of questions from the audience, with a lot of interest in the new commercial models of who (and how) may deploy metrocells - will site sharing, national roaming etc. be required in the future.

Wednesday, 23 January 2013

Our intelligent small cell technology has delivered 99.999% availability in some of the world’s most demanding indoor metro deployments. And we’ve doubled the number of tier 1 systems integrator partnerships from 2 to 4, meaning that Ubiquisys intelligent small cell tech is now embedded in the major slice of commercially available solutions.

LTE multi-mode small cells – focus on indoor metro and enterprise
Working with silicon platforms from long-term partners Texas Instruments and Broadcom, Ubiquisys will be demonstrating a range of novel LTE/3G/WiFi products that can handle the immediate need to ramp capacity and provide an adaptive evolution to LTE provision. Ubiquisys has deployed outdoor small cells but our focus is on intelligent cells for indoor public spaces, where the majority of mobile data is consumed. The combination of abundant sites, simple installation and automatic operation means that indoor cells can be economically deployed in much larger numbers for a sustainable ramp in integrated 3G/4G/WiFi capacity (see our infographic on indoor/outdoor small cells).

Monday, 21 January 2013

OYSTER BAY, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In what is a major endorsement for public access small cells, Sprint Nextel has announced that it will deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s lightRadio Cube Metro Cell to densify its Network Vision LTE network. Sprint plans to use lightRadio metrocells starting in high traffic indoor areas such as entertainment venues, transportation hubs, and business campuses.

“This is a significant win for Alcatel-Lucent and its lightRadio technology, but more importantly dispels the notion of small cells being hyped, and that heterogeneous networks represent a major shift in mobile radio network architecture”

“We believe that this type of indoor public-access small cell will become a popular method for operators wishing to preserve spectrum and augment the data capacity of their networks while improving QoS in high traffic areas,” says Nick Marshall, principal analyst at ABI Research. Marshall adds, "We estimate total indoor and outdoor small cell shipment numbers reaching 4.55 million by end 2013, and this announcement validates that view with a high likelihood of shipments reaching closer to 5 million."

Friday, 18 January 2013

Under iGR's classification, there are three types of metrocells: those that operate on 3G only, 4G only and those that can operate on both. iGR believes that ultimately the bigger potential market will be for 4G metrocells, albeit by a small margin.

Wednesday, 16 January 2013

Today, I went through the Informa's report on small cells. Some interesting points from the report as follows:

Microcells and picocells are already widely deployed in market but on a lower scale compared with femtocells. Metrocells are expected to enter the market during 2012 through operator trials or pilots and expand significantly during 2014 and 2015 primarily for 3G networks in developed markets and LTE in the US market.

Tuesday, 15 January 2013

Metrocells are compact and discrete mobile phone basestations, unobstrusively located in urban areas. They can be mounted on lampposts, positioned on the sides of buildings or found indoors in stadiums, transport hubs and other public areas. They provide excellent mobile phone service, delivering very high data speeds and capacity, solving the problem of growing data traffic demand cost effectively.

Monday, 14 January 2013

Alcatel-Lucent has long claimed that femtocells and metrocells can boost wireless networks, but this time, it seems that carriers are also betting on the technology. According to Osvaldo di Campli, Alcatel-Lucent’s president of the Caribbean and Latin American (CALA) region, three femtocell contracts have been signed in Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela. Di Campli said that there are ten metrocell trials across CALA, using both metrocell equipment for 3G and LTE, in Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Mexico and Uruguay....

Friday, 11 January 2013

Debate between representatives from Everything Everywhere, Telefonica UK, Telecom Italia, Disruptive Analysis and Alcatel-Lucent on metro cells and when to deploy them. Part 1 sees the panel define the metro cell terminology, look at where metro cell solutions are needed and define the product requirements. The speakers also discuss how to deploy metro cells, taking into account issues such as account site acquisition and logistical hurdles.

In Part 2, the panel disagree on the role of WiFi, and discuss the options for backhaul. Finally, each speaker answers the question, "When to deploy metro cells?"

Thursday, 10 January 2013

The question of why metro cells are exceeding other small cells in growth, at least in the case of certain companies is very interesting. One potentially key piece in the answer to that question is that in most cases, the Managed Service Providers (MSPs) own and control the metro cells, while other small cells are in enterprise or individual homes. This provides more incentive for the MSP to use metro cells, since they have ownership and management over the devices. Another cell type with fast growth is femto cells. Unlike metro cells, femto cells have limitations in terms of number of channels, restricted access, and can only be deployed indoors. Metro cells can support a greater number of users and can be deployed in both indoor and outdoor environments. VDC believes that the advantages and flexibility of metro cells are contributing to their growth.

Wednesday, 9 January 2013

The demand is clearly there and the mobile penetration and device usage statistics are beyond doubt. So the question can be asked, what if consumers could be offered the convenience of the home shopping experience while in the mall? A tailored event which lets them shop on their own terms while also being able to physically examine, try out or try on the product? There is an opportunity here for mobile network operators (MNO) as well as for retailers and venues themselves. Metro cells can give operators the necessary capacity and coverage offering to serve a busy urban environment and give end-users a high Quality of Experience (QoE) which will keep them coming back to the mall.